[MD] Selfishness a Buddhist idea?

[Ant McWatt]

Platt asked September 15th:

Can anyone explain the “Buddhist idea that you have to take care of 
yourself?”

Ant McWatt commented Sept 15th:

If it's any help, the phrase “The Buddhist idea that you have to take care 
of yourself” sounds very similar to the Pirsigian idea that:

“The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine 
that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ 
are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from 
Quality together.”  (ZMM, Chapter 26)

“Zen Buddhists talk about ‘just sitting,’ a meditative practice in which the 
idea of a duality of self and object does not dominate one’s consciousness. 
What I’m talking about here in motorcycle maintenance is ‘just fixing,’ in 
which the idea of a duality of self and object doesn’t dominate one’s 
consciousness. When one isn’t dominated by feelings of separateness from 
what he’s working on, then one can be said to ‘care’ about what he’s doing. 
That is what caring really is, a feeling of identification with what one’s 
doing. When one has this feeling then he also sees the inverse side of 
caring, Quality itself.”

“So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is 
to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s 
surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows 
naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right 
thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce 
work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity 
at the center of it all.”  (ZMM, Chapter 25)

Platt then commented Sept 17th:

Thanks Ant. This all sounds self-centered to me.

Ant McWatt comments:

Platt,

If you read the earlier section in Chapter 22 of ZMM about Henri Poincaré 
and harmony, you will see that the identification with what one’s doing by 
caring in a Quality way, actually takes you away from selfish, capricious 
whims:

“Poincaré had been working on a puzzle of his own. His judgment that the 
scientist selects facts, hypotheses and axioms on the basis of harmony, also 
left the rough serrated edge of a puzzle incomplete. To leave the impression 
in the scientific world that the source of all scientific reality is merely 
a subjective, capricious harmony is to solve problems of epistemology while 
leaving an unfinished edge at the border of metaphysics that makes the 
epistemology unacceptable.”

“But we know from Phædrus' metaphysics that the harmony Poincaré talked 
about is not subjective. It is the source of subjects and objects and exists 
in an anterior relationship to them. It is not capricious, it is the force 
that opposes capriciousness; the ordering principle of all scientific and 
mathematical thought which destroys capriciousness, and without which no 
scientific thought can proceed.”

Platt continued Sept 17th:

It appears as if to attain a Quality perspective you try to expand the 
notion of yourself to include everything else in order to eliminate your 
normal separate self sense. Thinking or feeling "I am the world" would be, 
for me anyway, a most unattractive ego trip.

Ant McWatt comments:

The attainment of “a Quality perspective” tends to weaken the ego.  
Scott-Peck makes the important point that ego boundaries must be hardened 
before they are softened (“The Road Less Travelled”, 1978, p.97).  An infant 
tends not to recognise ego boundaries but that is from the (selfish) point 
of view that it _is_ the universe.  A mystic, also tends not to recognise 
ego boundaries but that is from the (selfless) point of view that the 
(static) self dissolves in a fundamentally Dynamic universe.  Though on the 
surface, both points of view seem similar, there is the ‘full circle’ of 
spiritual growth (of the individual) between them.  Thinking of US politics, 
I wonder where you would put your average conservative or liberal on this 
circle of enlightenment?
:-)

Platt continued Sept 17th:

Nor would I choose to abide by a reality as seen in a drug induced haze or 
in a dream as suggested in another post.

Ant McWatt comments:

So you don’t abide by the MOQ (which, as Chapter 3 of LILA explains in some 
detail, originated from a peyote illumination)?  Next, you’ll be saying that 
you see nothing immoral with social level dominated governments (e.g. 
Junior’s) which keep drugs that undermine intellectual ability and 
creativity (such as alcohol) legalised.  Sounds all very SOM to me!

Best wishes,

Anthony


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